Contents

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to use the R Shiny framework to build a COVID tracking and analysis tool that can compare Minnesota counties with other Minnesota counties and to the state as a whole across several measures. This is nothing ground breaking.

Requirements

:warning: This was developed for ease of use on macOS. Not all elements of this project are guaranteed to work on windows or linux machines. At least not yet. :warning:

Required

Not required but helpful

  • RStudio (makes it easier to run the app and edit code base)

File Organization

The contents of the Shiny App are segmented into 5 .R files.

  1. run.R - runs the Shiny App
  2. init.R - loads all required R packages
  3. ui.R - standard shiny ui.R file
  4. server.R - standard shiny server.R file
  5. data_import.R - imports and wrangles data

How to start

RStudio

RStudio is the easiest way to run this app. Simply set the working directory to the COVID-19-Minnesota-Counties directory then open run.R and click “Run App” button.

setwd(~/COVID-19-Minnesota-Counties) #change to your location

or just source the run.R file in the R Console.

setwd(~/COVID-19-Minnesota-Counties) #change to your location
source(run.R)

viola, you now have access to the app directly in RStudio (or in any web browser)!

Terminal

An alternate way to run this app is with the app.sh bash script. This checks for R, then runs the app.

Launch a terminal session and execute these commands. Here’s an example starting with git clone

git clone https://github.com/rennerom/COVID-19-Minnesota-Counties.git
cd COVID-19-Minnesota-Counties
sh app.sh

This will launch the Shiny App in your default web browser.

Usage

When you first launch the app you will see an interactive menu on the left and a graph on the right. If you don’t see either of these, try building/running the app again.

The graph shows COVID-19 cases per capita over time. By default, state level data, represented as a thick grey line, is toggled on. There are also several “noisy” or “chaotic” looking thin grey lines above and below the state level thick grey line. Each thin line is a single Minnesota county. Once counties are selected in the menu they will be highlighted so that they are easier to view.

Interactivity

County

Either start by typing in a county, or scrolling through the list of MN counties and select one or more. Each county will be highlighted on the graph

Date Filter

Sets the date limits of the graph. The dates will be as up to date as when you last launched the app or if the New York Times update their source data, which they do each day.

Zoom y-axis in/out

The y-axis limits are determined by the maximum county level cases per capita for ALL counties whether you’ve selected them in your filter or not. If you want to get your selection to fit the graph a little cleaner, you can zoom the slider as you see fit.

State level data

The default of this toggle is to highlight the state level measures. This allows for comparisons for each county to the state as a whole. You can turn it off if you don’t need or want it.
#### Example | | |:– | | Here’s an example where the plot is filtered to Hennepin, Ramsey, and Anoka Counties, date range is from Jan 1, 2021 to Jul 31, 2021, y-axis is zoomed to a more ideal range, and the state level data toggle was left on. |

Info

Data Sources

  • This data is sourced from the New York Times covid-19-data github repo

Contributing

  • Have suggestions? Feel free to contribute by submitting pull requests or collaborate over email.
  • Contact:

TODO

Will do

Want to do

Will try to do, time permitting